change

What does it take to enact change in a stationary field? Innovation is difficult to enact anywhere, do you have what it takes? This discussion will touch upon what it takes to enact change on a larger scale.

It takes a lot of grit and determination to create and enter a new market, develop and apply a new process, or do anything that is new and different. There is always resistance to change that needs to be overcome. Most individuals would also like to positively adapt to the situations they find themselves in, and all companies over time find themselves required to adapt to changing circumstances. Some of these circumstances are serious enough to demand a strong innovation response in order to keep the enterprise healthy or in some cases to even survive.

Although we frequently have excellent ideas about what to do in order to improve things, they can be difficult to execute upon. The continued ability to operationalize insights can be called Innovation Vitality. This vital energy is what champions need to advocate innovation to all stakeholders including team, staff, colleagues, management and customers.

From this perspective, Innovation Vitality can be regarded as a measure of an organization’s capacity to launch and deliver on critical innovation initiatives. While innovation may occasionally occur without it, sustained innovation on the part of an individual, department or enterprise is generally directly proportional to innovation vitality. As such, innovation vitality is an important, complex and multidimensional capability for any forward thinking entity.

Examples of Situations Requiring Critical Innovation Initiatives:

So how would you and your organization score on innovation vitality?

———————————————————————–

Pre-Registration Tickets ($20) – on SALE NOW!

————————————————————————

Come find out at the SVII Holiday (Christmas/New Year’s) Party this December 4th!

This will be a practical and interactive experience where we will each have a chance to perform a self-assessment using an Innovation Audit Questionnaire designed by Howard Lieberman, and currently used by organizations and their leaders around the world.

In addition, we will be bringing back some of your favorite panelists and innovators from 2013! Keep checking back to see the updated roster (and don’t hesitate to send us requests).

After completing university programs in both Physics and Electrical Engineering, Howard spent fifteen years working for two large technology companies, Bose and Apple where he shipped more than a billion dollars of innovative products while taking Bose from analog to digital and Apple from computers into sound.He then spent a decade as a serial entrepreneur and a college dean and this last decade he has been applying these experiences as an innovator, innovation manager and innovation educator by founding and running the Silicon Valley Innovation Institute where he often finds himself functioning as an innovation articulator. He has also been an advanced technology procurement consultant to the US Air Force and is currently a Senior Science and Technology Advisor to DARPA, He is also active as a composer and performing jazz.

JUSTIN BAILEY

Vice President of Business Development

Double Fine Studios

Justin Bailey spent a dozen years in business development and strategic planning in the entertainment industry. During this career, Bailey has lead M&A initiatives, closed venture deals, setup crowd funding campaigns, and helped publishers make the transition from retail to digital distribution at Accenture, NAMCO BANDAI Games America, Perfect World Entertainment, and Double Fine Studios – where he currently presides over all business operations and is exploring how to effectively leverage crowd funding and crowd sourcing as a repeatable business practice.

BIRGITTE RASINE

Chief Evolution Officer

LUCITÀ Inc.

Birgitte Rasine serves as the Chief Evolution Officer (CEO) of LUCITÀ Inc., a hybrid design and communications firm. In line with her diverse media career that spans film production, journalism, publishing, marketing and technical writing, Birgitte has produced mobile apps and documentary films, written screenplays, funding proposals for NASA, and articles for Business Week, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, and worked in visual effects, camera and lighting on Hollywood and independent feature films for PDI/Dreamworks, ILM, Universal Studios, HBO, and Disney, whom she credits for giving her time in the trenches.

She is also a literary author, with several books to her name, including the novella “Verse in Arabic,” which was named a Finalist in the 2013 Press 53 Open Awards, Novella Category. She blogs regularly for The Write Practice, a community of over 95,000 monthly readers. Her web site is www.birgitterasine.com

Birgitte holds a BA in Film Aesthetics from Stanford University and studied cinematography at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles and international relations at the Instituto Universitario Ortega y Gasset in Madrid, Spain. She is a Founding Circle member of the Association of Women in Water, Energy and the Environment and sits on the board of directors of a non profit organization in New York City dedicated to supporting the leaders of tomorrow.

CHRISTOS CHRESTATOSDirector / Cinematographer

Thoughtpusher

Christos Chrestatos is an experienced filmmaker and director, and founder of Thoughtpusher, a New York City based creative shop specializing in commercials, music videos, fashion films, and “hybrid advertising”. His work has been featured in the New Museum of Contemporary Art in Manhattan, XLR8R (leading voice in independent electronic music for the US and many top international markets), RES Magazine (bi-monthly publication chronicling the best in cutting edge film, music, art, design and culture), as well as TV channels in countries like Japan, Canada, and Germany. Christos draws his inspiration from a curiosity towards the human condition, his love for mythology, and an appetite to create meaning; He believes strongly in the universal language of imagery (and its ability to resonate with individuals), as well as the power of the narrative in bridging the gaps of global culture.

JONATHAN BREMER

Mechanical Design Engineer, Thermal Systems

Tesla Motors

Bremer is currently working as a Mechanical Design Engineer at Tesla Motors. Curiosity has always driven him. After finishing his undergrad at Western Washington University in plastics and vehicle engineering he quit his job and dedicated himself to the WWU X-Prize Team. The WWU X Prize team built a carbon fiber, monocoque hybrid super mileage car, from the ground up. He was personally responsible for in car computer, interior and exterior LED lighting, display system, software integration, and the auto centering windshield wiper. Viking-45(WWU X Prize car) ranked 6th out of 121 competitors achieving an average of 112MPGe. Directly after the X Prize competition he was hired onto the Prototype Vehicle Group at Tesla Motors. He spent a year developing the Toyota Rav4 EV and Tesla Model S prototypes. As the Model S left the prototype phase Bremer moved to the Vehicle Engineering Thermal Systems Team where he played an active role in the rapidly evolving company supporting manufacturing, quality and service along with his Thermal Team responsibilities.

Cody is a born entrepreneur. He is deeply passionate about helping organizations find new frontiers in their overall culture,retain top talent and create healthier workplaces. He is relentlessly curious and has a genuine love for exploring the world’s perspectives by getting to know new people. After obtaining his masters, he began consulting work forDeloitte. He spent the first two years of his career traveling around the world helping clients understand better their risk of licensing intellectual property to the global marketplace. He considers this international growth experience to have altered his life in an extremely positive and open-minded way. He went on to spend 2 years atDeloitte Consulting in their Strategy & Operations practice where he helped executives of a Fortune 50 client spin-offhalf their business.

Cody is also an avid marathon runner and has competed in over 15 races around the world. His passion for running extends past participation as he has founded and organized a road race for charity.

The Silicon Valley Innovation Institute is all about innovation, whatever the form. Last week, we had a fabulous event focusing on innovation in music–specifically, as the title of the event asked, “How is technology changing music?”

The evening began with casual mingling and chatting. During this time, even though they were not an official part of the program, the entrepreneurs from Unplugged Instruments got the night off to a good start by showing off their super cool self-amplifying guitar (available through kickstarter).

Then we had dinner from the fine fare of Angelica’s Bistro (also the location of this event) while music was played by Scot Sier and Andy Markham, followed by a stunning Bolero dance by Roland Van Der Veen and Jessie Chen.

Jessie Chen and Roland Van Der Veen dancing the bolero

All this happened before the main program, which was an extended exploration of how technology is changing music (for better or for worse). Mostly, it was agreed that technology is helping music by, as SVII founder Howard Lieberman put it, “lowering the barriers to entry and allowing artists to reach more people with their music.” However, there were also some hints that it may not all be good. For example, Andy Markham, a guitarist from The Cat Mary, pointed out that “There is no law of the universe that dictates that music needs to be a way of making money.” Just as brick-laying is a profession that is now all-but-extinct, in five hundred years, technology may have made music so easy to produce that being a professional musician will be an impossibility. (He didn’t necessarily say that such a scenario has to be a bad thing, but whether it is or not would probably depend on your perspective.)

One thing that is for sure is that technology has changed music immensely. Even in the change, however, one can see the cyclical nature of music (rhythm, anyone?). For example, because technology such as iTunes, Youtube, Spotify, and BitTorrent (to name a few) have made music anywhere from cheap to free online, musicians have become much more dependent on revenue from live performances, which is somewhat of an echo of past times.

Additional juxtapositions of the new and old in music and technology were also highlighted by the other panelists. Budda Amplification founder Scot Sier talked about how he got the idea for his current company: At one time, he had a tube amplifier, but then he sold it. After that he realized how much he missed it, because it sounds much better at a lower volume than other amplifiers, which is important for preserving your hearing if you are a musician. This inspired him to start a company which would actually make tube amplifiers, which before then had been a dying breed.

Scott Sier contributes to the discussion as moderator Darius Dunlap looks on

Also present were the father-son-instrument-making-duo, Rick and Eli Turner, of Renaissance Guitars, who have mastered the art of creating a wide array of relatively mainstream instruments and equipment in surprising new ways. Eli Turner uses Photoshop and solid works to model instruments on a computer, allowing him to design and work on instruments much faster. But even though he uses new technology to make new instruments, the past is still quite influential. Whenever he is designing a new take on an existing instrument, he looks at the classic models of that instrument, which he likes to pay tribute to in his new designs, as in his partially cut-out guitar based on the Fender Strat (called the CopperCaster).

Eli Turner showing off his cut-out Strat and the electric tonkori that he is working on as well as a traditional acoustic tonkori

One of the highlights of the night was when Robert Hamilton of Smule showed a visualized version of people from all over the world singing “Lean on Me” together through the Smule Glee app (online karaoke and music collaboration). After the tsunami in Japan, someone in Japan posted the starter track as a way to encourage fellow Japanese people. Later, people from all over the world started hearing it and adding their own voices.

Another product that Smule makes is electronic instruments for computers–i.e, ways of playing music through your iPhone, iPad, etc. Hamilton mentioned that one of their most popular settings on the My Ocarina app for the iPhone is the Zeldarian setting, which mimics the way an ocarina in the Zelda computer game sounds, which is (as far as we know) not reproducible by an acoustic instrument. This echos something which Eli said about the flow of technology: “Technology tries to mimic the physical world, which forces us to learn more about the physical world by studying it more deeply. Then we take the physical and try to mimic technology, which forces us to learn more about technology.”

Robert Hamilton of Smule talking technology and music as Eli Turner looks on

——————————————————————————————————————–

SVII is the Silicon Valley Innovation Institute. We aspire to cultivate innovation by bringing creative people of all types together in a thought-provoking environment. Our next event is July 18th, and is an opportunity for anyone to showcase their creativity and audacity in performance and art.

The focus was on the creation of a Green Community Center in North Fair Oaks, CA. Activist architect Morton Frank presented a social venture to manufacture green certified, prefabricated housing units, onsite, in the community and for the community. An additional group of housing innovators lead a discussion on how to change livable to space in order to suit the environment. Read more →

Mark Yolton deeply engaged our audience about SAP’s stupendous success in collaboration through social software. Businesses see a fundamental shift to a dynamic world of deep, relentless change, which demand companies to adopt informal interactions to remain competitive; so they “need to accelerate the pace at which they respond to change, make decisions and overcome unforeseen obstacles”.Read more →